5 Reasons to Use Chain Over Wire Rope
-
Fully adjustable for life
Offering significant adjustability, chains are far more versatile than wire ropes when it comes to making small or even large changes to your setup. With a wire rope you'll need to send your sling back to the shop for re-working (that's if what you need can even be done!), there's a heavy cost in transportation due to the size and rigidity of a wire rope assembly, whilst with chains modifications and minor adjustments can be made with ease. Each leg can be adjusted (ensure you choose an ADJUSTABLE SLING and not a fixed length assembly if you plan to make adjustments to the leg lengths) to your desired position- perfect for applications where the center of gravity is offset or where one side is taller then the other. Making adjustments to the hooks is also much easier since there is no cutting and re-crimping that needs to take place, modifying wire rope slings is also pretty much unheard of these days due to the above mentioned challenges, those who plan to make changes choose chain.
-
Easy to repair
Repairing wire rope slings can be a challenge with similar issues raised above, components don't simply clip on and off, they are crimped and pressed in to place, simple damage to a hook can cause a whole leg to need replacing, where as with a chain that hook can simply be replaced without the need to replace the chain if there is no signs of damage.
-
Hard Wearing
Chain is extremely robust and hard wearing, so is wire rope, however WR is so rigid that in larger diameters it cannot often be bent and when it is, it is often damaged, similar results with smaller diameter slings when attempting to store them, they're often subject to improper storage and misuse which results in kinks. Kinks are usually a good sign it's time to make a repair or buy a new sling, with chain, this doesn't happen, storage is made easy as they can be coiled/piled up in to a small space, hung up on a short rack (as you can flip the legs around, attach the hooks to the top link and place a link half way down the leg in to an adjustment grab hook).
-
Positive connection- no crimping
Positive connection as a rigger it does a lot for our anxiety, having a pin go through a link Vs. a pressed wire ropes with ferrules goes a long way where we're from. Cheap poor quality wires have been known to un-fold and cause fatal disasters, with our high quality chain systems you can be sure there is no risk of this happening.
-
Cost-effective to transport
Transportation goes further then the initial journey from rigging shop to the end-user location, many slings clock up as many miles as the riggers who use them when being transported from job-site to job-site making transportation ability a key importance when buying lifting slings. Wire Rope Slings are heavy and ridgid, they're difficult to store and transport, whilst our Grade 100 Chain Slings are 25% lighter than the same size Grade 80 chains (meaning you get a larger lifting capacity in a smaller size) thus making transport and storage a whole lot easier.
